But sometimes I say to myself, ‘There, Afri-cans are fighting, dying and I am doing not h-ing, My life is sheltered in the heart of this cityof stone… - Véronique Tadjo

We must perform cleansing rites. Make the necessary sacrifices. We must replant our huge trees that have been uprooted, replenish our sacred forests that have been decimated.

Somewhere, a young man wallows in his suffering - his wound so deep he cannot draw a distinction between love and destruction. When he fights, he wounds his adversary like a fighter in search of victory.

As a bat, somewhere midway between a mammal and a bird, with my foxy-looking fangs and snout and my translucent wings, I harbor but one regret: having let Ebola escape from my belly. It was dormant in me until Man came and wreaked the splendour of the forest.